An outstanding game from Melbourne Victory goalkeeper Tando Velaphi could not deny Scottish club Celtic a well-deserved 1-0 win in Wednesday night's pre-season friendly at AAMI Park.

The visitors, who had lost to Central Coast before outclassing Perth Glory in the previous games of their three-match tour, had become increasingly frustrated after numerous near-misses or saved shots.

But they finally capitalised on their dominance of possession when Celtic's regular captain Scott Brown, a second-half substitute, scored the winner in the 78th minute in front of a 20,794-strong pro-Celtic crowd.

His shot from outside the box, off a Celtic corner, took a deflection off a defender on its way past Velaphi.

The Victory shot-stopper had earlier kept the Scottish giants at bay in a scrappy, scoreless first half then produced some more stellar saves early in a more up-tempo second period.

While Celtic had much of the play, it narrowly avoided conceding a penalty late in the half with Victory's Diogo Ferreira so incensed Adam Matthews was not called for handball while lying on the ground in the penalty area, that his abuse of the referee earned him a yellow card.

Celtic came out determined to score after the break and almost did with a blistering free kick from Thomas Mulgrew three minutes in, which was tipped over by Velaphi.

The 'keeper produced another superb block three minutes later, before Victory produced their best 10 minutes of the match.

Veteran Melbourne striker Danny Allsopp then had two narrow misses in as many minutes, a volley which bounced over the crossbar and a close-range header.

But Celtic rebounded strongly to dominate the final 30 minutes and end its tour on a high.

Victory coach Mehmet Durakovic was delighted with the performance only a week into preseason and said Velaphi, who joined Melbourne from Perth Glory after the most recent A-League season, was "absolutely sensational".

"I could not praise him enough, his saves tonight were outstanding. Not only him, the whole team's performance was outstanding," he said.

Celtic coach Neil Lennon was particularly happy with his team's second half and said the tour was a success, both in preparing for the club's season and giving something to the club's Australian fans.

"A lot of them here probably never get the chance to see the team in the flesh," he said.

"They get up at all hours of the morning to watch the games, so it was important we left our mark on them and hopefully they'll be talking about this team for a few years to come."